Economic Times ⁽²¹⁸⁾

If promotion of a warm relationship with India is top priority, Obama must drop common practice of insisting on matching concessions.Read full article If the promotion of a warm relationship with India is a top priority, President Obama must drop the common practice of insisting on matching concessions for every concession the US offers. By all accounts, like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President Barack Obama is keen to strengthen the India-US ties. Sadly, however, recent actions by the United States have only reinforced the feeling on the part of many in India that the President assigns significantly lower priority to India-US relations than did his predecessor, President George W Bush. This is unfortunate since the US interests in the region align most closely with those of India, at least from a longer-term perspective. Whereas China is already positioning itself as a rival, even belligerent, power and the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan remains highly uncertain, India is a rising democratic power whose national interests are better served by partnership rather than rivalry with the US.

While govt's measured response to inflation is to be admired, its action on food-price inflation cannot escape criticism.Read full article The subject of inflation, which occupied the media and the politicians in 2008 until the global financial crisis put an abrupt end to it, has returned to the centre stage of the policy debate. The big difference, however, is that this time around the government has been much calmer. Previously, the increase in the year-on-year wholesale price index (WPI) to 8% in April 2008 from 4.5% in January 2008 had the government reach out to every conceivable weapon in its arsenal regardless of its suitability for combating inflation. The government’s actions included cuts in import duties, bans on exports, appreciation of the rupee, rise in the cash reserve ratio, suspension of the futures trade, cuts in excise duties, export taxes and threats of price controls.

It is ridiculous for a party's views on the subject of decontrol of petro-product prices to shift depending on whether it is in power or not.Read full article The history of dismantling of administered price mechanism (APM) in the fuel sector offers an unusual window to the hypocrisy of political parties. Depending on political expediency, each party has both supported and opposed this reform at different points in time. The only significant exception is offered by the left-wing parties, which have never met a control they did not like. Beginning with the members of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), it can be safely assumed that they currently support the dismantling of the APM. From media reports, there seems no substantive opposition to this move within the UPA.

While the govts can make contributions in areas of mutual interest, long-term relationship will be built on individual contacts.Read full article Following the conclusion of the first India-US strategic dialogue , commentators in the Indian press have nearly uniformly expressed frustration with the lack of action under the Obama administration . To judge whether this dissatisfaction is grounded in reality, we must first ask whether each country has enough reason to invest in a close relationship with the other in the first place. From the Indian perspective, there seem to be sufficient reasons for an affirmative answer. Accounting for almost a quarter of the world's GDP, the United States is by far the largest economy in the world. It is also the only super power on the globe and likely to remain so in the foreseeable future. It is a democracy that values other democracies. And, finally, it is by far the largest single recipient of India exports of goods and services. If we seek rising economic prosperity and increasing voice in the world affairs, America is a good bet.

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